A Sounder Life Episode 5 with Shaun QUINCEY

episode five. And for those of you who did listen to episode four and would recommend it to others if there wasn't John's annoying 16 minute preamble, I have good news. I have re released that episode is episode 4.5. And the very Harry Potter type Wait, but just a tiny intro, I promise and then the rest is Raylene and I have a good old chat about all things sport, her career and views on impostor syndrome, amongst other things, and that discussion around impostor syndrome

absolutely loved. And there's a new phrase there, which I think we could all do well to consider taking on instead of this rather ominous, imposter syndrome phrase that we we generally refer to when we're talking about people feeling like they really shouldn't be in the room, and a new role for things really. Which premise brings me to today's episode, my guest is Sean Quincy, CEO and founder of something which we'll learn more

about as we cheer. Sean's a multi exit sounder serial founder, epic long distance rower and all around good fellow. KAs such a pleasure and a privilege to have Sean join me for the relaunch of a sounder life. He's a very humble chair, given his achievements and work and adventure. And I just learned about another facet of success that he's had along the way. And great stories every

time we chat. So we cover a lot of ground at just over an hour on this podcast, starting with an incredible recap of his highs and lows around his trans Tasman adventure, and move on to the parallels around that to the ups and downs of startup life. So I hope you find the inspiration and information from listening to our chat. I certainly did, thanks to our sponsor to three three key relating paid, reimagined, which is going through another reimagination of which this podcast experiment is

part. More on that later. But if you do like what you hear, please do let others know. And like a sound life on Spotify or Apple podcasts. And if you're really feeling generous, drop us a comment or feedback to me directly John, territory three dot community. So thanks very much for listening and onto the show with Sean Quincy. Kia ora . This is John. And I'm with Sean Quincy.

introduction. Secretly not the 16 minutes I did last time I've just completed waffle, having listened to when we interviewed Raylan Castle, right. And I'm sorry, we wasted 16 minutes of your life there. Apologize for that. But yeah, sound life what it's about sound. It stands for serial founder. And that was referring to me, but I'm actually in the presence of a serial founder as well today,

which was pretty cool. So welcome, Shawn, for those of you listening from further afield in New Zealand, many of you in our territory three system will know Shawn very, very well. And I'm gonna get him to tell us a little bit about himself. But I do have a very cool biography here, which will be available on the podcast episode. And there's some key points here and make the thing. I think the first time I met you was in the

cumulating pet. When you hate as a skier who needs to stop smiling in the corner and coming out in a debit succeed. Yes, yeah. Startup summit and like quite a big company.

Seven, a nine year old Mac and Charlie and they certainly bring a whole lot of balance to my life, which is which is awesome. Where I suppose my background is. Firstly, the job was selling radio advertising actually sort of here's a phone book, look it up, look up your customers and go sell them some some radio and basically had a small gig up and over us and in times of fame radio slots. Terribly. Absolutely shit. Now it was a disaster. I had an awesome boss, Lady Anna McGovern she was she

was fantastic. But six massive failure at sound radio advertising and, and basically learn, I suppose how's it sound though, and really, one of the biggest challenges I had was the area I sold to couldn't get our radio frequency. And I was door knocking all through Kenya. And really no times if it wasn't, we can get time's up. And so what we went out and did is I went and bought them a whole lot of radios, and bought them a whole lot of booster antennas to put

on top of the shops. And I was like, well, you will be able to hear it then that you can leave it on the shop and be fantastic. We'll give you some some free advertising. So you can get really started hearing how powerful a radio station is, and how can drive the audience from over over into the Caribbean stores and which I'm pretty sure most of them thought was bullshit. But they got their free radio. So they were happy in Costa sound. Totally was. And

look, we slowly got there. But what that sort of ended up evolving into which was probably my first entrepreneurial gig was I realized that I couldn't sell the radio advertising now I'm never going to buy it. And so what I did is I went and bought our 5000 Takko coffee cups and put times him on the outside of those caps. And then I put those caps into all the coffee shops for free around the cubby area. And I just paid for that. And I probably have a student loan at

the time. And say and then all the businesses and lucky we started calling and say what's those times the theme? How do we get on time? And I was like, Well, this is more of a thing than times within some what can I do here and so into b&w and said, Well, can you give me 15,000 bucks, and I'll print 30,000 takeaway coffee cups, and I'll put them into all the local cafes and nickimja area. And then they paid me and they did that. And so that was my first

ever gig. I was 20 then and, and so getting $15,000 in W was pretty spectacular for me at that particular time. And what I sort of did at that particular time was having the structure of radio advertising my head about having particular areas and the way you sell and marketing of advertising. I went and signed up the cafes for exclusive distribution points for that product, which was branded taco

coffee cups. But the cafes loved it because they got free takeaway coffee cups and and then I could go and sell space on those cups to local businesses or anything else and then ended up building that business and to about 100k a year of revenue. Then I sold it was sold to a company from Melbourne who has an outdoor painting company at 21. Because they have really good chunk of cash. And that was sort of cleared up a little bit for me,

it was pretty exciting. And that gave me enough money to put a deposit down on my notion loan. But

thought Greg Sean's coming. And I said, you know, one amazing bloke and he's handsome he looks in his life and he mentioned was one year about to in this guy said, Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, tell us. Tell us that story. Okay, and also, not too useful Exam. Barclays, probably driven by New Zealand flight prices. Yeah, well, yeah, well

Sea back in 1977. He left from Hokianga Harbour and rode for 63 days by himself in this little boat Cory, Cory Yorkshire had already carried all of his own water and crashed landed on a beach called Marcus Beach, assassins and nustep What's the

thought. And a story I always sort of tell us is on day four, I was sitting there just crying on the bike because I was like shit, this is this is 10 times harder than I ever thought I've rode for four days. And the first four days are kind of very dangerous, because you're in the shipping lanes. And so you've got no real proper light, you're very low to the water so the ships can see you. So you're gonna get mowed over unless you're really careful. And so you wrote as hard as you can for

four days. And so I was exhausted. And then I realized, this is a never, I'm never gonna know when this is going to end. I don't know what's coming. I'm totally out of control here. This is really, really hard. And I don't know if I actually want to do it. And I thought like I set the boat on fire. I had a life raft and I look at Primus cooker. And I was like you know what, fuck it, I can sit this boat on fire and I'll still get a good story. And I'll probably still be able to pay some of my

debt and we're on the way. And that's it they fought for and my fruitcake have run out that my, my, my awesome wife and maid. And and so you know, should it hit the fan and say I'll send the guy should What can I do? Sit in the boat on fire. And then I looked at all the names of the people who have given me a little bit of money on the boat and and some of them give me 20 bucks some or give me $5,000 There's just all these people that have backed me, and believed in me and said, here's

an opportunity. And I sat back and I thought well, actually, Shawn, you're the only person in the world that's been given the chance to grow the Tasman Sea solo, by yourself. Today, you're the only person currently doing it. If you weren't here doing it, what would you be doing in the B, there'd be someone else probably taking your spot D once on the spot. And it really shifted the way I approached pressure from that point onwards was pressure is a real

privilege. And going into challenging situations, it's always good to remind yourself I think, well, this certainly for me is to offer I wasn't here, where would I be? And nine times out of 10 I think most of us kind of want to be where we are, but we don't acknowledge it. And then we reflect on as a hard or stressful situation. You go actually, every choice leading to this, I was mailed, or hopefully most of the times. And I'm here and that kind of really mean through the risk of the

truck to go well. Yeah, it's really hard. But this is this can be a bit of your life's work. And this could be your moment, and what a cool thing. And so look at it like that and be happy about it still means things got really, really hard. But I use that quite a lot now sort of businesses and any stressful man on that. Okay, how can we turn this into a good?

of completing that. And I suppose I had the extra motivation of matching my dad's accomplishment and, and which was another driver, which many other people wouldn't have. And so, to me, that was a bit of a gift. And that did get me out, you know, set a mark and, and one of the main motivators, I think, was if someone else had rode the Tasman, from New Zealand to Australia, and was the first I just I would regret that for the rest of my life.

And that was the biggest moment I had probably and I was thinking I was like, wow, if someone else does that, I'm gonna be past that to me. I'll get that first my life and so from that point, I had to I had to go and do it. And so whether other people have that motivation or whether they want to be faster then then out we did it, then I'm not sure but I hope someone else does it one day, the good.

particular wave. And that there was like a slow flips, I wasn't overly violent. The boat dug in and then slowly sort of rolled over and over and and the battery will chose probably about 10 or 15 kilos of battery landlubber face. So that was a bit of a Ouch. But also I was upside down. The book was designed to self rise. And so it should have just popped back up. But it didn't for some reason. And so

there. And I vividly remember looking at the cabin hatch, and I was underwater, and it was totally underwater, but there's not, no, we've got an epoch and I literally a pocket was sitting I was sitting inside off and it's a sealed cabin. So I was there and I was like holy shit, this doesn't really get any worse. Yeah, I'm upside down and I wasn't panicking I because I knew that this is what it was designed for. And that's going to be okay. And I knew that it

was gonna hold together. But I was like well this is quite an unusual scenario. And there was more about right what do I need to do now to get the boat up right and so I can keep right

and and go and go out again. And so eventually I positioned my body in a cabin tub start rocking the boat from side to side and and eventually popped the boat back up and then so what had happened when the boat verted is some of the emergency bacon said automatically triggered and so it wasn't the big major ePub one thankfully it was this one actually supplied by a New Zealand Company called trek plus, which inverted and dusted off a beacon to a

website. And part of that the website immediately started flashing emergency beacon and the funny part of the story is TV through saw that and then the TV reporters caught my mum and they're like What do you think Sean's set off his emergency beacon you know he's in trouble and mum was like I don't know but let's say so it was at the moment and so the story is a little bit longer but what popped back up again I was fine last summer was lost some stuff off the deck and all that kind

of stuff and then all the emotion caught up with me the next morning and the sea of Ken brought down and I was sitting there bawling my eyes out just going fact that was intense that was really bad this is an unwritten I'm at all there's nothing I can do. And it's awful. And so I called my dad and then and I was kind of sobbing and a little bit emotional. And I was like this is bloody terrible. What's got this is so often awful, it's terrible and then Dec days fuckup and I was like oh, okay,

sorry. I was kind of hoping for a bit of a national support there you guys look around you. And okay, and it goes Have you got a seat and I was like yes and he goes Have you got all wasn't yesterday he goes What the fuck you talking to me and hang out and talk about right message at the right time. You know, I think he had taught sea survival and the Navy for 20 years. And so he knew, I think, and I was so lucky to have that

conversation. And you know, the best things you could do is get around, get some progress and get towards New Zealand. No one can rescue him in the middle, nothing's gonna change for his benefit apart, you know, unless he starts growing really hard. And so yeah, that was that was probably the worst.

many bigger adventures. And so kind of when those little moments happening, I was like, Yeah, this should be pretty proud of the stuff you've got here. You know, you're in the middle you're, you're in the arena, you're going for it. And so those combination of all those moments as they happen along the way, we're definitely there. They magnetite sort of effect on credit pretty proud of

you need to hear. And then a lot of the time in the corporate world all the time that they just are so guarded and so strong and their view about ways of doing things, they actually just missed the boat entirely as to what matters. And people are too scared to give them that feedback. And so I think trying to be approached continuously being open and approachable. Trying to make sure people want to give you advice and wants you to succeed by acknowledging the input they're given to you as

well. I think is really helps you make make helps you avoid huge mistakes regularly. Sometimes it's really hard to listen to some of that, because it could be quite damning on your own personal capability or what you've done or what you've invested in, or what you've invested other people's money in as well. And so it's I think remaining coachable and being able to move very quickly when you can acknowledge that other advices right as well. To act

upon it. So one would be on would be coachability remaining open to being coached. Olympic athletes don't get there by themselves near the confounders. No one can no one by themselves. You need a team of great people. The other the other big thing is there's a there's a balance of am I actually don't have an answer to this at all. But there's a balance of of confidence and arrogance. And it's trying to figure out where

that line is. And and what that line is because you will never build a great startup unless you're confident of its success. And then you've got to walk this line of humility, confidence and some what can be perceived as arrogance as well, because you believe in it so much. And you need to convince other people to invest money into it as well. And you've got to have, you're not going to be successful then unless you unless you do have

that confidence. But then you got to be told, and listen to watch quite regularly what you need to shift on that particular startup or seed. And I guess it's, I've typically played and seed and precede. And I think that that's very characteristic of that space later on. Because you do have data and metrics of success, and you do know what repeatable systems and processes work. But for me, it's those couple of things which I struggle with. But also, I think

I can do pretty well. Now I've learned sort of how to walk those lines,

actionable? Yes. Yeah, totally. How do you rationalize her? Well,

on what stage you're at. But you've more likely had a lot more domain exposure and trying to sell it to the different stakeholders along the way. And so you will always get multiple people coming in with those opinions, what those helpful

bits of advice. And I think you've got to be careful and how you build the context with those people prior to those meetings, about where you want advice, and where you want that help, because they can come in and lob grenades really quickly and totally fucking your strategy or direction, often unintentionally, and unintentionally, you slip back and there's a panic attack. And so of Oh, my gosh, we're doing

things totally wrong. And, and I think a lot of people will pick up and get defocused by those scenarios, or those pieces of feedback due to the caliber of the person, given that bit of feedback. And so it's always, when you are taking feedback, I think it's important that you inform and educate that person as much as they are able to, on where you want the advice and

your journey to date. And as a founder of quite a few businesses over the years, I've learned that I can tolerate that feedback and know and sift and sort that feedback and information where it's relevant and where it's not. And I suppose that's the confidence aspect you've got to be able to use ago, he's got that view, because he hasn't been or she hasn't been on this journey yet. We know we've knocked on that door, we've opened that door, we've been down that rabbit

hole. And it's not actually an option, but but I'd want to validate what they're just saying. And that could have been a year or something ago. So that's always a tricky one.

it. But talk to us about your your sort of learnings and now kind of key key guidelines and rules of leadership. And then

give them a task. They're not they're not coin operated, they can still think for themselves, but they cannot tolerate insecurity or strategy or or that their business might not work or that what they're working on might not be successful. They just need the structure and to follow that.

And so when you bring in external people who have a variety of strong opinions, and they can absolutely destroy that person for a couple of weeks because we talk about sort of anti fragile, but they don't deal with anti fragile will very well the chaos that shifts in direction the pivots, they want structure, they want repeatable processes and that's when they're going to dominate once so we When I, when I look at building and managing my teams, I think I look at culture and

phase of the business. So culturally, what kind of person is that person? What can they tolerate? And where have they been prior. So, at the stage of the symphony business, which we're running at the moment, lots of change, lots of challenges, lots of high tension conversations, lots of pressure, we're early stage with finding product market fit, moving fast, quick decisions, and, and lots of lots of sort of walls to bust through. And, you know, I love that I've sort of loved that

challenge and thriving. And my challenge as a CEO of that business is to identify the right people who also love that challenge. And then putting behind those people, the people who love the safety and security and systems and the graph, does

that get a whole lot done. So it's really making sure that you're putting the right people into the right places that can tolerate the various stages of their business, and then moving those people on really quickly, once you evolve to because a business like symphony, which is you know, a year old, is rapidly changing, right? And so we don't necessarily know, the organizational structure, and who are the right people, the right time, and the right spots, to scale that business to where

it's going to land. So it's one of these things where you've always got to be ready to chop and change, you've always got to be ready to be nimble on your approach. And I guess, fundamentally, I think at this stage, one thing I'd say is, a lot of it is more values driven, then then then skill set, because I think we're all grafting and chopping and changing that us working as a team to deliver an outcome for customers is priority number

one. And that takes a whole lot of a whole lot of good cultural stuff over and over and above actual capability, I think of separate skill sets from time to time.

upper cap. Because I just so I think for me, absolutely solutions orientated that there's a path and there's a, there's a conversation to be had, whether it's post an argument, whether it's going into a negotiation, or whether it's employment dispute or an opportunity, there's always a way forward. Positivity, definitely, I think, you got to remind yourself of that all the

time. I think it's a choice, you wake up and you are going to be an asshole to that day, or you're going to actively go next, I'm going to try and drive a positive attitude to the team or the organization. I'm working with that day. And persevere. I think that's definitely stuff. I could summarize what what I think I remind myself of, and I suppose it's going to stay positive, persevere and based

solutions orientated. And if I could keep deliver on that, then the outcomes will take care of themselves.

of different ways as well. And so what Symphony does is Symphony acts as the collector of all those different payments, no matter how customer or small businesses paying for their insurance, and just all those payments into an orchestration system, which basically matches the personal is applying for the policy to the payment reconciles all of that information, and pushes it up into a dashboard and a whole lot of easily to digest reports and there so other systems like zero

operating systems can ingest it all. So it makes paying really easy and really transparent for customers for digital experience. It makes managing hundreds of 1000s of customers really, really easy for insurance and their sellers of insurance and However all collectively at remove lock x from the businesses who sell

insurance as well. So better experience for the buyer better experience for the seller, the best possible customer experience at the lowest possible operating costs with automation running through everything.

into. And so the entrepreneur and Shawn basically said, Well, I'll tell you what, I'll build that. And that's going to be you know, that's going to be amazing. And that should be a really good opportunity I didn't quite comprehend yet. I think that's that flash in the pan type book, wow, I'm gonna do that it's gonna be a piece of cake. Yeah, I'll just just go and do that. And, sure we can, we can build something spectacular and huge and quick.

And so started researching in what I suppose I had the luxury of as I'd finished that achieved COVID I've had, so I have huge amount of time. And really, I just thought I'd take a year off and hanging out with the kids. And though started researching and researching insurance, insurance, distribution, insurance payments, how it works, the the customer flows, the journeys and everything, and was just dumbfounded with how antiquated how slow an awful

experience was as a whole. And where I just thought we had the domain expertise across what we had done previously, but the generic pay business to execute on a far better global solution. And the market was huge. And so I thought, if I'm going to deal with that, in the next 15 years of my life to creating something valuable, had the market size, we had the domain expertise, and we felt we could actually deliver something 10 times better than that was at play.

And so that was the combination of things that came together to go yeah, let's go raise money. Let's go. Let's go ahead and let's do it again,

particular sector. Look at the global opportunity of that nation and think about us how do we be the best in the world at you know, making shoe eyelets or whatever it is? Start, just get as nice as you possibly can to build features in around undefendable capability and around that niche domain expertise. And so for me it is, and I'm looking at, look at debitsuccess as an example, when we went to, when we went to the US, we went, and we were a gym membership online platform, it

was where do we go? How are we going to win? Is it price differentiation or niche? What are we going to do? In New Zealand, we were trying to do insurance payments, gym membership payments, beauty payments, childcare payments, absolutely. And trying to provide some software because yeah, we have to to get the volume and to end and look, to be fair, we provide a pretty good solution into those spaces as well, which was good, but it

wasn't globally scalable. And we went to California, and we're based in San Francisco, and we're gonna sell everyone again, we're gonna go, we're gonna absolutely go for it. And huge amount of money going into there. And ultimately, the go everywhere, be everything for everyone strategy didn't work. And so

for. And I would rebrand, website, and I would become, I don't know what you'd call it, maybe beauty membership, billing systems, or whatever it might be. And then you'd go and you'd Smash, Beauty Therapy, and then and then you kind of geographically nation as well. And especially for the States, I think it's quite important as the states. And so you go, Well, let's look at California, then you realize California is the sixth biggest economy in the world. And you go, we'll actually

so it's quite unusual. And sometimes this was of benefit that you own the whole lifecycle. And so, because it's so big, they have they segment out their funnel quite a lot more in the phases of that growth funnel, and who has to do what? And so what you find, or what I certainly found is we were under equipped for the amount of resource and needed to serve the buyer at each of those phases on the funnel, and we're here to compete in New Zealand.

Yep. So you arrived in the US and like, Well, you're the host, the account executive was the was the onboarding team, Where's all this kind of start from? When we started, like, Oh, it's just me, and I'm doing everything. And then for the smaller sales, fine, that's okay. They found that unusual, but it was, it was learning that highly repeatable highly scalable sales systems require you to break down that sales cycle into its components. And and learn to pass that on at

scale. And that's where you can start dealing with you know, 100 sales leads a day and moving them down the funnel. And that's that sort of the hypergrowth model as well. So that was my, my one learning is setting up for that hyper growth, even if it starts with four people breaking it down to that and then then at least you've got the model to scale that up to 50 which was what we did you know, pain by now pay later.

any pair territory three. And it's former sort of view of trying to help everybody top and bottom of funnel mean by that is, you know, people listening to inspiration or perspectives to get going through to the stuff that I personally enjoy, which is, you know, selling what the sort of founders who are really getting through the hoops Yes, so we've cut that out. And then when I'm now down at that founder through the hoops, my Patient is the sales side of

that disease. And so a couple of questions for you just to put, you know, that really useful perspective and contrast to I'm the founder, you know, you've clearly demonstrated with, with the wonderful radio example, you've got that sales background early on, I'm a technical founder, I'm able to find my way through, you know, most of the technical problems that coding and so forth, I'm now you know, starting to get some traction around the problem I'm solving, what would your advice be being

their first salesperson, and there's a non salesperson or not from that background? And then I think the bigger gap, which is how to manage Another resource is the founder, essentially, it's the sales manager at a small organization. So, you know, where do I go to be moved from Cardinal Lakota to, to have to sell mine solution that I'm coding? And then how do I kind of move on to actually making sure I'm getting something out of, you know, the first sales person or somebody is going to

do it? That's not me

point. So how do you approach it I can, I can only really talk from the startups I've been involved with, and what I've seen work and what I've seen catastrophically fail. Yeah, the best outcome I've ever had was, I hear my maiden name, and a guy called, met me in Melbourne. And we, he was a very systems orientated salesperson. And so he was an operator, he was a real, here's a system, this is what you follow, here are the email templates, this is how you send those and this is how you

respond to them. And as long as you do this, 150 times 27 outcomes are going to happen, and they're probably going to be good, right? So do this, and I'm going to crack the whip and get this done. I love that approach. Because you can measure it, you can manage it, and it's money in money out type of production, it's can be quite brutal. And there's very personable. And, and you get a lot of cheer, I've

stopped doing that as well. So but from a single founder point of view, I think if you can find a person that understands that sales as a system, growth as a system of repeatable steps and putting the right systems in close, in write content, right? Email Templates, right, nurture, journey, all that sort of stuff. It is a data driven system of, of inputs and outputs. And so

I'm convinced of that. And so when I give advice to founders, it is fun sign that acknowledges the science of science, as well as there is an element of X that they have, and their ability to build rapport is there. Now, these people are not easy to find at all. And there is no shortage of salespeople that will sell their ability to you, which is also really bloody hot.

learning skill, right? And so they're going to be they're going to be one of your best product influences as well that salesperson because they're gonna go out and they're gonna sell, sell the world, if they're any good, and that's going to drive product direction to in some ways, shape or form and so I think it's a very hard thing. Do because they go out and they sell all the time they bring back. Oh, by the way, they asked for this feature, can we do it? Well, that's what we need to win

the deal. Yeah. And so they've got to acknowledge a couple of things, one that the dev teams and software can only deliver so much. And if you oversell, then that is just as bad as not selling at all, because they find the whole Cisco. And then so they can do that. And my dev team will laugh when they hear me. And in some ways, you've also got, you've also, they've also got to be prepared to do the admin work to set up those systems and processes because

that's what you learn from. And if they keep doing what they're doing, it's continually failing, failing and you're not measuring it, or we're not tracking it, well, you're going to continue to fail, you're not going to know why to be able to identify where the gaps are. So with programs like HubSpot, and whatever else you're going to use, you can map the whole customer journey, and communication flows and everything, and you can really

drill down into the science. And then and then the art will take care of itself, with with everything out about or poor and connections and network, etc, etc. So I'll probably give you the huge, long winded because

Because the system is 100%. But you're constantly reviewing and refine on it.

amazing. But then you've kind of got to pause them all, and put the systems in behind them and see how you scale that because three is not enough, you're gonna need to build a billion dollar business, you're gonna need 43 or 403 of these types of people. And so without the systems, you'll never make that leap. And you'll stay as that, you know, that three awesome

hustlers. So, you know, a wind back the clock to the 1990s, they were going to hold in common direction, and a cell phone, they drive around New Zealand drag people a couple car accident, that sort of stuff. So it breaks next

relatively new thing. And everything has actually been going along swimmingly to that point. But I would say, and particularly in the States, it's probably indicative of some pretty rapidly shifting priorities for the company so that your solution, and this is

where it comes down. I think I love the near Al, painkiller or vitamin D. Yeah, suddenly what you're selling to them is actually enlightenment that they can't afford to have to keep buying from the chemists warehouse, suddenly, you know, the word come from on top that gotta find some solutions to some very different pains, yes, and refinement and restructuring your proposition as well as your sales forces. patter is pretty key to it. Oh,

enough. And so we have had 10 years with almost 18 years of good times. And certainly, there has softened a few a few different aspects of business and what we are willing to do to fight to keep winning and so it's now the time to fight and to dig in and go, you know, work harder. And you know, the Think of the six day work week, maybe that's the you know, that becomes the norm again, and this is when we we've got to keep

going. And you've really got to ask yourself and your product, or your service that whatever you're doing, where are the actual pain points that and where are we really where are we really solving problems and where's the actual value in our business? And if there are things we use spending money that aren't creating value or adding value, then you need to drop them. And the people that are supporting them, you've got to lower your cost base as low as you possibly can and really

dig in. And that's, and the sooner you do that, the better I think, me and you build a better business. And so then we're gonna see a heck of a lot of that, and we're gonna see a heck of a lot of those types of cats. But those businesses will be better and stronger for the product will be better and stronger. And that's, that's probably what a lot of them should have done a little while ago as well. Right. And this is just the moment where they have to,

transition around. Yes. But productivity, culture, you know, a whole lot of things that have been lifted a little bit with the tide. Yeah.

They're not building a routine into their lives, which is going to set them up to win, I don't think and so the coaching, they're sharing streams, when you're coding, they come out and say to me, when I teach you how to sell something, or here's what our customers actually need, and it'll work for you on the whiteboard. And I think so much that it's so valuable, and

osmosis is a real thing. And I think, you know, there's a lot of learning, which a lot of people are missing out on which I, you know, I like when I remember only I've always been a guy who loves coming to work. Yeah, I'd love to second family of work, you know, more people to share if

success. If you run lean, and build great systems and processes and focus on revenue, then you're gonna have a great business and everyone's going to have a job. If you don't, then not everyone's gonna have a job and the business might not work.

So I think for me, looking forward, I'm constantly looking at the most affordable way for us to execute on things which is you know, product lead growth, you know, getting case studies using those, you know, trying to try and keep the above the line marketing spend as low as possible and just doing things which will help your business grow without spending too much money. I guess that's one thing. Secondly, it's it's constantly looking for that efficiency.

rather than hiring five, can you engineers build for something as well. So it's looking to spend a little bit of money upfront to build more automation throughout your systems and processes. Another thing that always catches a lot of founders out and maybe simple, there are a lot of big organizations that have sold freemium to get you on the hook. And then all of a sudden, in year three, you get smashed with some massive AWS bills or zero bows, and where you get smashed with some huge

HubSpot bills. And you got to be really careful, because that kills people, right? That just absolutely, all of a sudden you're getting your cloud structure and how you've designed your software. It's now costing me 1000 bucks a month. Well,

going to come from. It should always be, here's a list of 100. And we're ready to go. And I've been talking to 65 of that 100. On and off for the last few years, just giving them a bit of a heads a little heads up building rapport, people aren't going to suddenly give you money as a Vc, Vc is not going to take a phone call, you're not going to do a pitch and all of a sudden, you're going to get

their money. It's it's a process, it's relationship building, you're going into business with these people, and they need to know you and trust you. And that takes time. And so it's not a not a lowly shot, you don't go on to suddenly just hand over your pitch deck and get the cash out. It is a deep partnership, and the more they know about your business, you know, slightly, I think the better outcome is going to be for you in terms of getting

capital from them. So I think that's one of the biggest lessons I've ever had, as I've spent so much time now telling people about what we do, what we're trying to do and why it's really hard. But why the prize is really good. Yeah, I'm off to Las Vegas at the end of this month, and I'm meeting with 12 venture capital funds from the US. I'm not raising money for maybe two more years, but I'm just going to meet with them, tell them what I'm doing. I want to build the relationship when

they come to New Zealand. I'm buying them beers and shine them wacky Island if I can, you know, it's, it's that's always going.

We talked about that. The original context, it was linked into what I've talked with some other my guests before about a woman in leadership, woman and leadership and leadership both on have covered and then just wellness in general, mentor for physical otherwise, which I think it'd be a great place to end up on based based on what we've chatted about today, but imposter syndrome.

normal, normal lives. If I say something wrong, people are gonna think I'm a bit of a Decker, I am going to discredit my own capabilities through through them interpreting what I've said, as being on the market, or whatever it might be. And I think I've maybe I just haven't put myself in, you know, out there too much in situations where I don't have enough domain knowledge or some particular signings. But certainly, I'm never afraid to be wrong. And I ask tons of stupid questions.

And I am regularly wrong. And I'm not fazed by that. Because I learned quickly from that. And I think in some scenarios, you've got some people who leverage other people's lack of knowledge to make themselves feel better, right. And those kind of people are generally decks. And not, they're nice to be around, but we have to deal with them, we have to work with them. And I'm not afraid of being wrong in front of those types of people adore. So I don't, I'm lucky, I don't think I've really felt

impostor syndrome. So naturally, I've tried to learn from those people quickly, and then found out that actually, they don't know very much, and they've got the confidence issue. But ultimately, everyone gets nerves, and sometimes putting the processes in place to try and overcome those or surround yourself with people to make you feel good that you've got that you've got the ability and skill set to deliver.

And what do you want to do and and I think it's so important that you have that with the power to the war doesn't feel like it happens as much as now and then you kind of just niche, then then the horrible thing is what happens all the time as the wife goes and has the babies or the whoever has decided in that relationship to have children, they get us advantage because they're out of the workforce, and then the roles that they were chasing, and go and it's you know, stories many times

coffin, lose confidence, lose credibility, whatever it might be. And so building those pathways back in, are really important. And we want as a summit director of Ecolo, we sit one of our goals was to have the best maternity leave package for females to come back to work. So not just females, it's wrong in males, it was rolled out to have them on and reintroduce them protect the role and keep them engaged in a particular program while they were looking after

their new little ones. And during that time as a parent, and so it's trying to make sure we build the pathways back to help more engagement. And make sure we keep those roles open when we can and then I think engaging people who are on maternity leave whilst they are away as well helps with the confidence. Yeah. But some of our employment laws are also like that had like yeah, breaking employment law by game or do you recommend for some meetings, or whatever it might

be? And so it's, you got to be a bit careful. So that was more on Australia, right? That that particular issue? Yeah, just saying well, come on. Like bring bring the little little one What did you want to do and would love to have you here but then

you gotta be careful. Because like when they're off, they're off and you can't, you know, you can't push them so like it's making sure we get the pathways open Bowmore pathways, continually support and And just keep pushing to create opportunities in and create those roles and give those roles across when we can

anybody owning a business. You know, what those experiences, you've had a circular, which is unique and pretty, pretty extraordinary opportunities for I guess, you know, self reflection, and then resilience and a whole bunch of things. But, you know, what are your go twos for somebody listening to this, but really knows that not, you know, they're not quite where they should be? Yes. And that's affecting their lives and within is the way to present it

to themselves. You know, mentally, physically, whatever it is, what are your go to direct keeping?

place. And it is tough, and it is a grind, and no one has all the answers and their social media is terrible at making us think that everyone's got the answers. And it's all easy. And it's all in a memo or a small statement, or something like that. It's all fucking hard. There is no quick, easy win anywhere. So firstly, I think I've learned that I know that I know that everything is going to

be really hard. And therefore there's a one that probably has ever there's an easy win, it probably really isn't one, right? It's not something exciting. And there, what I tend to do now a lot more. My first business, everything was on the line houses was on the line, huge mortgage, a two year old and a three year on a home, you know, ship was hard, and I was making 40 grand a year. And, you know, if things had gone badly, it would have been losing the

house. And so that pressure unfortunate now isn't there. When I ran a Tasman, that pressure certainly was there for other reasons I was gonna die. Whatever it was, what I learned is you don't need to focus on the whole, you don't need to solve every problem, all you need to do is make sure you are being functional, and you are delivering value in the short

term. And try and solve the problems that are two inches in front of your facts, right, solve those problems, and then move on to the next problem and celebrate solving that problem. If we become outcome orientated, rather than process orientated, sometimes that can really throw a spanner in the works and make you really worried about that. Because the outcomes will take care of themselves if you get the process and the systems

working. And, and I think for me, it's focusing on the short term goals, celebrating those short term goals. And if you find that too hard, make them smaller, make them really small market the next hour, right, or if I was rolling based setting up, right, some days, it was just set up and have a mouthful of porridge. And it got that got that bad and that hard. So think as founders and as business leaders focus on you know, the next task getting that done as best as you can and pass that

message on to the team. Make sure you've got a structure where all those small tasks are driving outcomes that help for the business and make sure you celebrate those small tasks along the way as well and momentum builds motivation and motivation is helpful in building morale and your own capability and feeling of capability. And so I think it's the harder it is the smaller I break down the tasks and the more celebrated I do of those

small tasks to get there. So it's that's sort of the way I deal with it try and teach other people to deal with it in that way and then that kind of seems to get a Bucha done.

aspirational story. But my question is, you know, what are your thoughts around the framework of you know, and I think this faces a lot of our I always talk about business has been at three, three distinct phases, constantly, survival, sustainable, whether it actually got to a point where you know, they did more than they spend, and then scalable. When, in your opinion of what framework you use, to figure out that it's actually time to stop.

all the time. And you go and reach out yourself. To move on with that. When you have an idea. And you're trying to execute on that, and it hasn't worked, you haven't got the revenue, the cost basis too much the financials don't work. I think that's when I choose to stop a few or tell people to stop as you kind of do all the maths. Yeah. And you? And the answer is always and you hit us lot from founders all 10 million more files in the US, and I've got the proper valuation. I've

weren't Yeah, I could do it. I could absolutely do that a lot. Yeah, you know, and if I hadn't done this, we could definitely do it. And then I think you gotta go back and go, Well, firstly, fine, raise the money, right? Cool. If you can't raise the money, you're done in some ways. And that's, that can be as long or shorter conversation as

they want. I think to get to that point, I really like to make sure we've worked through all the data, the journey to date, the time you've got the the unit economics of that business, the product where it's there, what we need to spend to get to the next phase, and it's a combination of all of that information to go, Well, we're here, how much to get to here? Do we have that money? Yes or no? As we have? Do we have the trajectory or the story? To keep getting to that point? If we

don't we go? Okay. I think, you know, I think we need to stop. And I think that's that's how I approached it. It's it's never a sudden whirlwind of emotions or anything like that it is a combination of a journey to that point. And the data of God at that particular point. I will always, hopefully be involved with businesses where the focus up to that point has been building value of some sort, or building value, or an asset of some sort that we could move to someone. And so I'm, I'm a big

one for soft landings. And I know, it's sort of always trying to make sure. And even with all the businesses I'm involved with, like, there's people who we could sell it to at some particular point, there are people we're building value for in that value chain. So once we get to that point of walking the wire go well, but what do we

actually have? And if I've done my job as a director, or as someone involved in that business, I would like to think there's three or four people, we might be able to move the asset, so at some point as well, so that's kind of how I approach that.

founder. And, and it's certainly, it's not easy, but it's very rare. That and if you're ever worried that what could happen well, you can always get a job and to me, that's the biggest risk.